>Eric,
>I usually like what you say, but not this time.  A good counterpoint is
>to look at the Secretaryship of the Smithsonian.  Until recently, always
>a scientist and always an administrator, and always successful.  Hard to
>find anyone better than Dillon Ripley.  The kind of person you describe
>sounds like a facilitator, a moderator, a mediator of interests and
>issues.  Perhaps someone who, without any special skills of their own,
>can package and sell those of others.

Yikes! If I can just jump into the fray here, let me say that it takes
enormous skill to become a facilitator, a mediator of interests and issues.
A good facilitator enables people of diverse skills and opinions to come to
some point of convergence and creation of something greater than the sum of
its parts.

Ivy Fleck Strickler                     Phone 215-895-1637
Drexel University                       Fax 215-895-4917
Nesbitt College of Design Arts          [log in to unmask]
Philadelphia, PA 19104

"Never forget that life is like a Fellini movie, and you're getting to see
it for free."